Tag Archives: marriage

I missed the last marriage monday! So I didn’t want to miss this months MM! This month is an open topic about marriage, so I’ll share a little about what’s on my heart lately.

Having a healthy Christian marriage is no easy task.

Being married isn’t easy on the best of days. There is always someone else you have to look out for — throw in a few children, some rowdy extra family members and few pets and you’ve got basic marriage. But how do we do it well, and how do you do it as a Christian?

Well, first and for most is having Christ in your marriage. Taking your issues big and small to HIM. Teaching your children to pray, and praying together as a couple and as family are so important.

Right now my goals in our marriage is working on goals. (isn’t that a paradox? lol) Since Mr. C and I moved out here last year, it’s been a year of change. Mr. C is back in his home territory (next to his parents) while I’m out of my element learning to be a farm girl.

Mr. C and I are alike in a lot of ways, but we are almost polar opposites in some things. He’s consistent – I’m sporadic. He’s blond – I’m a brunette. When he’s quiet I’m outgoing, and when I’m outgoing, he’s quiet.. I think we complement each other for the most part; but we do butt heads a lot while trying to work on things. We are working on trying to figure out our goals.. more for me because being a mother I sometimes feel like I don’t know who I am anymore.

As you might have read in my review above I touched briefly on my heart for the Ukraine/Russia. I really feel like we – as a family are suppose to do something with that. We struggle with where God wants to use us regarding it. If ministry – on a large scale is something our family needs to be involved in, or are we suppose to focus on just being us… while we are growing little people into productive and hopefully children of Christ (which is a ministry of it’s own, just on a different scale). I also wonder if my photography is part of that dream/goal, or if it should just be left as a hobby.

I guess I know God knows the big picture. He knows were he wants us. Some days I know I don’t listen as well as I should. And sometimes when we slack off in our marriage and don’t work towards God’s goals instead of just trying to get by, we don’t feel very much like loving each other well. It’s easy to say “I love you” to each other, but our actions don’t always say it. If we’re not following what Christ has designed for our marriage (even if we don’t like it somedays) we don’t work well -function properly. There are many times when we could have walked out on each other, but we haven’t for one reason. We are committed to Christ and his design for us in our marriage.

I hope that you are committed to Christ and his design for your marriage as well. I pray that God will bless your marriage and that you will invite him into it fully and acknowledge that He is in control of it. No matter how much each of us differs from our spouses, God has a plan and design for us in our marriage, and he wants it to thrive!

no, I’m not talking about those little yummy candies.. though it does have that feeling.. I’m talking about a book!

This book is hilarious! I was laughing and lovin it so much, hubby had to read it along side of me! I was actually surprised he wanted to. So that alone was encouraging!

Each chapter contains questions at the end to answer, a scripture verse, a “good night kiss” (something you should be saying to your spouse), and a funny quote. Cindy has laced the book with humor, personal experience, quotes from respected Christian authors such as Dr. Leman, but mostly the desire to show Christ in your marriage. Not to mention it is extremely funny that her husband has the same name as mine, so it really felt like I was reading some of my own experiences from the past years as she describes them.

We worked through some of the questions, and found Cindy’s questions really relevant to our marriage life. Cindy is insightful and her experience, information she provides is extremely relevant in today’s marriages. This is a book that i wish I would have read 10 years ago… and if I read it 10 years ago, I wish I would have been smart enough to take the advice and practice the ideas given in the book. She dispells some of the myths that WE ALL HAVE about marriage.. and oh will you laugh!! BECAUSE YOU KNOW YOU’VE BEEN THERE! I love the fact through the humor there is truth. We’re not alone in our struggles and many many of experience similar paths one way or another.

My favorite parts are the “good night kiss”. It made me smile and my husband smile every time I said them.

This is a book that I think any Christian couple could benefit from -whether you’ve been married 1 year, or 50 years. It is encouraging and will bless your marriage.

I think you can read this book a few ways. She suggests to read a chapter a week. We sort of just started reading, spent time on the stuff we needed to work on.. used some of the charts, questionnaires, but mostly read together and talked.

Type: Marriage manual/guide/help

rating: I’d rate this book a 5! I read it, enjoyed it, and will probably give out at future weddings I attend!

As a fun ending, I’ll leave you with a wonderful list from Cindy’s book.

“Instead of “50 ways to leave your lover,” lets look at 50 ways to love your husband (I’m giving you the first 15 20 cuz they are pretty fun! You’ll have to check out the book for the rest!!)

Buy his favorite ice creame.

Shave your legs.

Buy satin sheets and initiate a surprise passionate encounter.

Brag on him when others can hear you.

Pray for him

Keep his confidences.

Do the unexpected.

Be hospitable to his friends.

Pick a day and let him sleep in.

Send him a cookie bouquet at work.

Wake him in the middle of the night to make love –set the alarm if you have to.

Admire his muscles without laughing.

View him as if from another woman’s eyes.

Keep a list of the things he says he wants, or would like to do–whenever possible do something from the list for him.

Begin to fulfill that list a little at a time.

Laugh together, especially at your own private jokes.

Rent old movies. Watch it together in bed with popcorn and cocoa.

Take a walk in the rain holding hands.

Sleep without your pajamas on.

Hold hands as you fall asleep.

ooooooooo i could go on.. because the list gets better and better! lol but I’ll stop there!

I challenge you to pick one from the list and do it today/tonight! 🙂 and don’t forget to say “I’m so glad I married you.” It really does an amazing thing…

I was trying to decide on how to start this. When I got married for the first time I married for happiness. I married my husband because I thought he would save me, take away all the trouble in my life, make me a better person, help me live a happier life.

When I re-married the SAME man for our 10 year anniversary (we had a little private get together with close friends). I did it for holiness. We choose to stay married and we wanted to show others that we were committed to God, and his desire of holiness in our marriage. I can say with confidence I love him more today because of it. He is more handsome, and more loving than I can remember, and I am thrilled to be his wife.

You see happiness is insatiable. We couldn’t thrive on trying to be happy. We almost ended in divorce the first 8 years of marriage because we could fill the happiness void in our life. We craved so many things that were not of God. It took a long time for us to realize that we were going down the wrong road… and yet God still showed us that we could live differently. The difference in our marriage now is God.. not that God has changed, but we’ve surrendered to having a holy marriage with God involved fully and actively in our marriage.

Now, some people might say… what do you mean; there is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy. It took me a long time to understand the difference between happiness and being joyful.

Happiness – Good luck; good fortune; prosperity.

Joy – To rejoice; to be glad; to delight; to exult.

Okay, so the first thing I want to say is I don’t care about happiness anymore. It’s a worldly term in a lot of ways. We think “things” can make us happy. I want to be JOYFUL. I want my heart to rejoice and be glad and delight. I don’t want the emptiness of being happy as it is fleeting; it’s an unstable thing. It can be here for a moment (you got something — oh i’m happy!) as opposed to being joyful where it’s something within your heart. The terms are often switched, but they really are different things.

So, please don’t misunderstand; I don’t think happiness is a bad thing, – I like being happy! I just don’t want my marriage depending on one thing after another to satisfy my heart and needs.

Now onto holiness.

Holiness – The state or quality of being holy; perfect moral integrity or purity; freedom from sin; sanctity; innocence.

We need to keep our marriage holy before God. We need to keep it sacred before God. If we don’t, we will find it a struggle to say the least.

I thought about posting all the verses I could find that relate to marriage in the Bible, but honestly I believe if you read the Bible together and practice biblical living — together, you have a wonderful combination of a healthy and godly marriage!

If you look in the Bible, happy only appears 21 times, but joy appears 241, and even more so, holy appears 500 times. If God mentions holy so much, I’m guessing it’s a pretty important word, and something I need to learn more about.

Do I have it all figured out? No. I’m a work in progress.

Dear Lord,

You are the Creator of marriage. Your desire for us to have a holy and sacred marriage before is what I desire. Help me to remember this when I struggle with our life. I know you care for us. Thank-you for giving me my spouse.

Want this button?Marriage Monday is here again, and the question posed for us today is:

“Is Divorce Ever Right?” Here’s an opportunity to share your wisdom, Scriptural knowledge, experience, quotes, or any other insights you might have. Please feel free to approach this vital subject from any angle you feel led.

There is a simple answer. NO.

My experience with divorce… let’s see. My grandparent’s were divorced – he was an alcoholic, left her with 6 children, and eventually he committed suicide. My parents are divorced — 3 months after I married my sweetheart (Christmas eve to be exact) they announced that they were getting divorced.. And myself.. though not divorced, we’ve walked too close down that road (b/c of our own choosing), and have come to the discovery that

1. God does not want divorce to be an option.

2. Divorce is not in my vocabulary any longer.

3. Divorce is preventable. It is hard work, but you have to CHOOSE to be married. There are ways out of a lot of things, but they are not always God’s choosing, they are our own.

4. God can heal a broken a broken marriage. I am living proof of this. If he wasn’t the healer of broken hearts and so merciful and gracious to me, I would not be married today.

Now, I know some people are rolling their eyes thinking, what about infidelity, what about abuse, etc. Those things happen. We live in a broken world. Staying married, doesn’t mean putting yourself in dangerous situations; it’s about honoring a commitment you’ve made to your spouse and more importantly to God. If you didn’t get married with God in your marriage, you are going to struggle a lot more with this – but than God wasn’t there from the start. I’m not saying that to be mean; it’s a fact. If you start off marriage with God and Choose to live marriage as he commands

** let me add here, my post for some reason is missing the rest of it. I have been having bad connection today and for some reason it’s 4pm and everything I posted earlier is gone, except the orginal unedited. I feel bad b/c some have read it already it.

To sum it up b/f my connection dies on me again (we had a wind storm and the tower is out I think)

God doesn’t like divorce, he hates it. I don’t believe it’s okay even with infidelity; it is an option b/c we have hard hearts. If we truly repent he can heal our marriages. How do i know this? Because he has healed mine. I am not judging those who have been thru it, or who are looking at it. I don’t believe it is a biblical solution; it is worldly. I had previously listed the scriptures where it included the word divorce in it. If I can offer the advice to anyone who is going down that road is repent for your own part in it. Seek forgiveness, and swallow your pride; make amends the best you can. If you are staying together b/c of the kids or any other reason you feel is right… choose the right reason to stay together.. because it is a choice to stay married.

Anyhow, I have to stop now. I apologize for the mess of this post, but it’s as good as it’s going to get at the moment!